The FCC found that the "public interest benefits of the proposed transaction outweigh the likelihood of significant public interest harms, such that overall, the proposed transaction is in the public interest." It didn't come without conditions, however.

AT&T has to divest spectrum in certain markets, as well as agreeing to begin deploying LTE using Leap's spectrum within 90 days to 12 months of closing -- and within 18 months in six specific markets in south Texas where Leap had a big swatch of customers. It also has to maintain Leap's CDMA roaming agreements as long as it keeps the network around. (See AT&T Plans a Prepaid Cricket Attack.)

The FCC is also requiring AT&T to continue to offer rate plans targeted at value-conscious and Lifeline customers, as well as to provide it with quarterly updates on how it's meeting the conditions and the migration of Leap customers.

AT&T gains nearly 5 million new prepaid customers through the deal, but, more importantly, it gets access to Leap's spectrum, including its complementary PCS and AWS holdings and an LTE network that covers 21 million people.

Re: "Public interest benefits." Those public interest benefits are sometime more in the minds of the attorney's making clever presentations before the FCC than actual benefits. Only time will tell whethere AT&T's of 21 million customers will ultimately provice some added benefits to the public and customers. The FCC did mandate carrying out the service to value customers and Lifeline subscribers which gives bargain rates to low income folks. Just how many this might serve is open to question.

Re: "Public interest benefits." Faster access to LTE in Cricket's markets, which AT&T pledged to upgrade in the coming weeks. A larger network for AT&T customers and more prepaid choices. Because Cricket was small in size and relatively targeted in certain markets, they didn't see it taking out a competitor as much as, say, Sprint acquiring T-Mobile would be.

Re: M&A in the USA I agree, it will be interesting to see what happens, the wireless market has always been 'competitive' (from a carrier perspective not necessarily a price and service perspective). Prepaid still has a lot of potential.

Six different communications service providers join to debate their visions of the future CSP, following a landmark presentation from AT&T on its massive virtualization efforts and a look back on where the telecom industry has been and where it's going from two industry veterans.

It's an art and a science to make mentorship, inclusive leadership, diversity and promotion of high-potential women work, says Honore' LaBourdette, vice president of Global Market Development at VMWare.

Supporting women both inside and outside of Fujitsu is a top priority of the telecom vendor. Yanbing Li, Fujitsu Network Communication's director of System Software Development & Delivery, shares why it's important, but why there's still a long road ahead.

Liz Centoni, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco's Computing System Product Group, shares why mentoring in all its forms is important for women and what Cisco is doing that's made a difference for women in tech.

Guavus unites big data and machine intelligence, enabling many of the the largest service providers in the world to save money and drive measureable revenue. Learn how applying Machine Intelligence substantially reduces operational costs and in many cases can eliminate subscriber impact, meaning a better subscriber experience and higher NPS.

When used to analyze operational data and to drive operational decisions, machine intelligence reduces the number of tasks which require human intervention. Guavus invested in Machine Intelligence early. Learn about the difference between Machine Learning and Machine Intelligence.

Guavus unites big data and machine intelligence, enabling many of the the largest service providers in the world to save money and drive measureable revenue. Learn how applying Machine Intelligence substantially reduces operational costs and in many cases can eliminate subscriber impact, meaning a better subscriber experience and higher NPS.

When used to analyze operational data and to drive operational decisions, machine intelligence reduces the number of tasks which require human intervention. Guavus invested in Machine Intelligence early. Learn about the difference between Machine Learning and Machine Intelligence.

Hossam Salib, VP of Cable and Wireless Strategy at ADTRAN, outlines key trends as MSOs begin to deploy next-generation Gigabit and 10-Gigabit cable networks. In the interview, Hossam outlines the advantages of a Fiber Deep architecture, FTTH options including EPON and RFoG, and the importance of SDN and NFV in building next-generation high-bandwidth cable networks.

At ANGA COM 2017, Cyrille Morelle, president and CEO of VeEX, updates Alan Breznick with VeEX's new products and technology. This includes VeSion cloud-based platform for network monitoring, AT2500-3G advanced spectrum analyzer and MTTplus-900 WiFi Air Expert module. He also comments on DOCSIS 3.1 deployment and Remote PHY technology.

Versa CEO Kelly Ahuja discusses with Carol Wilson the current status and trends in the SD-WAN market, Versa's innovation around building a software platform with broad contextualization, and the advantages that startups can bring to the SD-WAN market.

ARRIS's John Ulm says a major accomplishment of SCTE•ISBE's Energy 2020 program is increased focus on power cost and consumption, including inclusion of energy requirements in operators' RFPs and RFIs.

Understanding the full experience of women in technology requires starting at the collegiate level (or sooner) and studying the technologies women are involved with, company cultures they're part of and personal experiences of individuals.

During this WiC radio show, we will talk with Nicole Engelbert, the director of Research & Analysis for Ovum Technology and a 23-year telecom industry veteran, about her experiences and perspectives on women in tech. Engelbert covers infrastructure, applications and industries for Ovum, but she is also involved in the research firm's higher education team and has helped colleges and universities globally leverage technology as a strategy for improving recruitment, retention and graduation performance.

She will share her unique insight into the collegiate level, where women pursuing engineering and STEM-related degrees is dwindling. Engelbert will also reveal new, original Ovum research on the topics of artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, security and augmented reality, as well as discuss what each of those technologies might mean for women in our field. As always, we'll also leave plenty of time to answer all your questions live on the air and chat board.